To the rebels over here and over there
It’s not easy to catch reality into words, as feelings and desires always go beyond what is offered by vocabulary. It is however a vital thing to speak, trying to give expression to our thoughts and feeling. Certainly at times when the terror of the state and her troops of order try to silence everything.
For years we’ve been saying that we need space and time to enable us to think and speak freely. This space and time will never be given to us, we can only conquer them ourselves, eradicate them from the reality of thou shall and thou must. That’s why we’ve been speaking and we speak about revolt, about deeds which create space to live, to express our desires for freedom which no longer accept the sickening misery and ugliness of this world.
During the past week, the State chose to fill up all potential space with uniforms, riot vans, undercover police, detention and abuse. The state barely tolerates anarchists that encourage revolt by words and deeds, but during this week it was put all on all to prevent all encounters between the different rebellions which are heating up the social conflictuality in Brussels. And authority expressed itself by its easiest language: terror, that is to say, a systematic and indiscriminate violence.
The manifestation announced for the 1st of October against all closed centres, prisons, borders and against the state was not allowed to take place, no matter what. A prohibition to gather was declared in four of Brussels districts, while an imposing force of order arrested everyone who gathered around the meeting point. At the same time, other squadrons were controlling the neighbourhoods and metro stations with an iron grip. Both the prisons of Saint-Gilles and Forest were hermetically closed of by a squadron of riot police, while in the heart of rebellious Anderlecht the police were patrolling with balaclavas on their face and machine guns in their hands. Hundreds of people were preventively arrested, tens of them were humiliated, abused and beaten at the police stations.
Lets be clear: the state is not afraid of a hand full of anarchists, but fears the potential social infection which revolutionaries try to effect day by day. Since long Brussels seems to be a social powder barrel in which the social tensions are tried to be suppressed by more police and more wounded and dead persons on the side of those who try to confront in one way or another. The social tensions however continue to express themselves in a radical way: ranging from frequently recurring riots in the neighbourhoods to revolts in the closed centres and prisons, from well aimed attacks against the structures of state and capital to a spreading hostility against everything wearing a repressive uniform. The manifestation announced for the 1st of October was probably about to become one of the possibilities for encounter between the different rebelliousness and anti-authoritarian ideas- and this encounter got squashed.
Despite the militarised pacification of those last days, we will continue to focus on this social powder barrel, knowing that each opportunity can set fire to the powder. The proposal for demonstrating was blocked by many obstacles almost impossible to overcome, but other activities will make their way.
Despite the police walls trying to keep us separated, we continue to consider the encounter between different rebelliousness’s as a desirable and necessary possibility. No repressive state blackmail can soften our enthusiasm for this.
Despite the fact that our initiative got snatched from our hands, we are determined, in our hearths and heads, to snatch it back. Despite all, we continue. Nothing is over… the possibilities are still there to be grabbed.
For the moment, four comrades are staying behind the bars of the prison of Forest, charged with complicity to the attack on a police station in Brussels on the night of the 1st of October. Let’s make them feel our affection and solidarity.
Anarchists who won’t leave anything behind
Brussels, October 5th 2010
[Published in Hors Service 11, December 12 2010 ]
